


When the Wing is a Sail

by gritkitty



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:11:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1640705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gritkitty/pseuds/gritkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Catherine, Lily, and Tom Riley come to an understanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Wing is a Sail

**Author's Note:**

> Nestra and Kass, Semielliptical, Shannola, ~delle, and shrift all helped.
> 
> Written for sahiya

 

 

Once the child had come, and Catherine was resting at last, Lily stopped her agitated pacing, but she refused to forgive Tom Riley for his complicity in Catherine's misery. "I will drop him into the lake if he dares to show his face," she said through the window.

"Dearest, you cannot --"

"I can, and I will drop him from such a height that he shan't be able to cause you such pain ever again."

"Do not fret so; it is passing already. I have suffered worse for king and country."

"Whether it was less brutal or not makes not a whit of difference to me."

"I have much more to show for the effort, you know." Catherine looked down at the pink dumpling swaddled in her arms. Her voice quieted, low and tender, as she said, "He is only a boy, but he is precious. How odd: he is ugly, helpless and mute, but beautiful as well."

"I could talk when I broke my shell."

Catherine extended her hand as if to caress Lily's soft nose, even though Lily was out of arm's reach and Catherine touched only air. "You could talk and walk and feed yourself and every other manner of wonderful thing. You were beautiful then, and you are more beautiful now. No other creature could compare."

Lily hummed deep down in her throat and her expression softened, mollified. She poked her snout further inside the window. "That is it? That is the baby? Why, I suppose I knew it would be small, but it is small as a cat. Have you given it a name?"

"Jack, for my father, though his last name will be Riley. I will not have it said I reneged on my promise. Certainly, since there are so few eggs he will have better prospects as a Riley for wealth and comfort, if not as interesting a life." Catherine shifted about on the bed, seeking a position better for her comfort.

Lily watched her thoughtfully. "Producing an egg is not quite the same as human parturition," she said slowly, "but it is similar, I think."

"Similar, yes, though less exciting, perhaps. You shan't have a helpless creature to feed and care for after your birth pains."

"To hatch from an egg is a far more elegant process," Lily agreed, "but it is the laying of the egg that I find unsettling."

The baby began to root, and finding only the soft blanket, grunted: tiny sounds that increased in urgency until Catherine opened her gown. Lily cocked her head so that only one eye showed, pupil open wide: the better to focus on the baby and how it latched on to its mother. Admiring, she said, "Well, that is a neat trick."

Tom agreed when he visited to assure himself of Catherine's well-being, Lily having been distracted by Volly and his Captain James in a plot to keep her from murdering Jack's father. The child looked a bit like his eldest niece, he said, though she was the only of his younger relations he had met as a newborn: service to King George had prevented his attendance at any other familial nativity.

"It was good of you to come, though hardly necessary; Jane Roland produced her midwife, better than any physician."

"It was she who arranged my transport here, with Langford James: a prodigious favor," he said. On Laurence's request, Catherine was sure. If asked directly Jane would have dismissed Tom's desire to see his son as motivated by sentimentality at best and filial posturing at worst, but now that he was here with her, holding the child, Catherine was glad Jane had agreed to indulge him. Tom gently chucked the babe under its chin with his finger; the tender bow of mouth pursed and relaxed back into sleep. "My mother will be beyond joy once she hears of little Jack."

"So you have no issue with the name?"

"Jack -- it's very lucky. Just the thing, I assure you." More formally he asked, "Pray, what does your beast think?"

"Lily," Catherine said with particular emphasis, "was suspicious at first, but I do believe she has come to dote on him."

"And no wonder; Jack is an exceptional child."

"The love is instant," Catherine said softly. "I have had the joy to feel it once before, but I did not think it would be nearly as intense, but it is, nearly."

Confusion clouded his expression, but then he said, "Instant love, yes. It is that precisely, and it pleases me that we are in total agreement about our son."

* * *

Her gut rose up as Lily dove, swooped low as she pulled up; and not even her years spent on dragonback were enough to inure Catherine to such antics, but she held her place, feet solid against Lily's back, and as they climbed steeply she heard the shouts and crackle of rifle fire pitch suddenly to screams as men fled Lily's acid eating through the sails and rigging of the _Annibal_.

"Well done!" Catherine shouted, the words torn off her lips by the wind. Above them Temeraire back-winged, hovering as his sides belled out and his throat widened to deliver a roar wicked enough to stun the Petit Chevalier and send him into a near-fatal spin. Before plunging into the water he recovered with painful twist to pull away at some speed, but only just above the waves, he had fallen so far, and only gradually gained any altitude. Lily's wingmen jeered and called, plucked just as mute as she by the wind, but Catherine had no difficulty reading the coarse expressions on their lips.

Settled on the transport once more, all the dragons fed, cleaned, and somnolent, Laurence praised the quick action of the Petit Chevalier over Captain Riley's dinner table. "An admirable maneuver."

"You would not credit such agility in so large a breed," Catherine agreed.

"Would that the thing had crashed," said the captain of the first merchantman, his face long, in mourning for the loss of dozens of barrels of spices ruined by an unlucky shot under the waterline. "Crashed and sunk to the bottom of the sea."

"I am relieved he did not fall," said Catherine, "and I am glad his effort to save his crew succeeded."

"No one likes the death and destruction that comes with war, but it is inevitable," said Jeremiah Richard, captain of the second, intact merchantman. "Better that the French beast succumbs now than to return and perhaps incapacitate or destroy one of our own. British dragons are a precious resource, and they increase more slowly than we can build ships: the most valuable of creatures."

Tom began to stir as if about to speak, but Catherine said, "But there is more to battle than a - a reckoning of relative value of the combatants. Honor, for one, and bravery and skill."

"I am not speaking of the engagement of warriors on a battle field, but of dragons, the great war engines of the air," he countered. He swirled his glass and glanced slyly at Laurence. "I am surprised, sir, that there was no pursuit. Had you let fly another great roar the beast would have been laid low."

"I say," Tom began just as Laurence coldly emphasized his dragon's name, "Temeraire would never stoop to such a cowardly act. Nor, could I roar, would I."

"Aggression must be faced with bravery and resolve," Catherine added, "but to chase after a retreating enemy to stab him in the back is reprehensible."

"You seem to have strong opinions on this topic, Mrs. Riley," Richard said. Catherine seethed at his condescending tone; he saw her only as the captain's wife, wreathed in skirts, her hair swept up. Never had she enjoyed playing the expected role of a woman, and she disliked it intensely now as Richard continued, "I find that unusual: refreshing, even."

Tom glowered, but the merchantman appeared undaunted in his position as a wealthy man and captain of his own ship, separate from the navy even if dependent on the navy's protection. "My wife need not opine; I daresay knows more than anyone here about aerial warfare."

"Indeed." Jeremiah Richard's eyebrows rose. "I never would have imagined the wife of a naval captain could be so well-versed in military proceedings, especially those of the Aerial Corps."

Laurence took charge of the conversation then, his back stiff; Catherine had seen him go with less dread into battle. She suspected there had been a terrible breach in one arcane naval ritual or other; she had listened to Tom complain before about the complicated trials of dinner with his commanding officers, and though Laurence was an excellent fellow, quick, kind, capable and extraordinarily brave, he remained inside the cage of custom whenever he set foot aboard a ship. To break the rules would sit as poorly as rancid salt-horse with him. He certainly looked as if he had eaten bad meat.

Tom was merely angry, and for all the same reasons save never having experienced life outside those rules. Dinner was agony.

Once the last of the guests -- interlopers, Catherine had stated baldly to their backs -- had been loaded into their respective boats and shoved off, her dress followed: not tossed overboard, though she was sorely tempted, but shucked off in favor of her uniform. Tom found her in his cabin, coat in her hand, and disappointment lowered his face. "I had hoped for a turn about the deck," he said.

"I would be happy to walk with you before I join Lily."

"Of course," he said woodenly in the very same manner as Laurence when he tolerated some unpleasantness, but delivered less capably, and Catherine surmised he had wished she still wore the dress. She wanted to tease him until he grew pink on the ridge of his cheeks because she liked how he looked; high color and a frown revealing the high spirit behind his usual geniality.

But they were at sea, on his ship, surrounded by his crew, before whom Catherine knew he would resist any such manipulation -- would reject her outright with a cold shoulder, no matter that they met as husband and wife only rarely, a few days for each two months in the best of circumstances. So she walked with him, to and fro along the leeward side, speaking of the weather and prospects for rain -- the extraordinarily good pudding -- a brief discussion of the fish native to these waters. As the sun lowered over the horizon, Catherine stopped mid-stride and said, "Enough of this. Let us go and praise Lily for her grand dive that turned the battle so neatly." Tom accompanied her to the dragon deck but deferred to Catherine as they approached the dragons, standing a pace behind her. Lily glowed warmly in the failing light and Temeraire was a substantial shadow on the deck broken by the irregular shape on his forearm: Laurence at his ease.

Laurence stirred and reached for his coat, ignoring Catherine's admonishment to _by all means, do not shift yourself on my account_ , but she had known him for years, now, and he would as lief try to hold a handful of Lily's acid as give up his coat in company. She complimented his performance and Temeraire's.

"Lily took the day," Laurence said. "Sweeping the tops saved any great number of men and no few holes in the dragons."

"Thank you. It certainly took the heart out of the fight. I have never seen a skirmish break so quickly." Lily turned her regard to Tom. "Do you not think so, Captain Riley?"

"Having seen few aerial battles, I am sure I cannot say, though it all seemed tolerably quick to me. Perhaps Laurence could elucidate, but as a naval captain, I," he said, "have never seen the like."

"Bowled over like pins," Lily said, "the lot of them startled only by my shadow: very gratifying to see, and I am glad of it. I do not like striking men with my poison; it is a horrible thing to witness." Catherine went to Lily and petted her, stroking the bony protrusion on her jaw.

The dragon had no doubts about her own design and function, but the horrors of war saddened her, even as she accepted their necessity. Catherine's thoughts were cast back to Mr. Richard and the unpleasant dinner conversation. The man had been insultingly ignorant about the nature of dragons, but he had been right in some things: war demanded its due, rarely pleasant.

"War has its ugly side, and we must endure," said Tom, and Catherine replied, "I would say much of its body is ugly, but there is no help for it but to carry on as best we can, with our friends and comrades, and hope it is the enemy who suffers the most indignities."

"They can afford more suffering," Tom said, "and they deserve more, I dare say."

"There are more of them," said Temeraire. To Lily he said, "We must increase, we dragons, and more quickly."

Lily raised her head, pupils slit in surprise. "Do you suggest we bring forth an egg, you and I?"

Temeraire looked equally startled. "I had not intended -- that is to say --"

Laurence gaped before closing his mouth, blushing and mute. Tom avoided everyone's eyes, deeply red even to his ears and pretending the rail was the most enthralling construct in the entire world.

"Celeritas had suggested I consider it, should time permit, though there was no discussion of who should be the father; we had no time to speak of my preferences."

Laurence made a strangled cough, and Catherine clenched her hands by her sides. "Lily! When was this? And when did you plan to tell _me_ of your plans?"

"I have no such plans," Lily said, ducking her head. "Not without your good opinion."

Catherine cast her arms far as she could reach around Lily's neck, even as she heard behind her Tom speak to Laurence, making his faint apologies before the tread of his quick steps retreated.

"You always have my good opinion, dear one," Catherine spoke into the smooth warmth of Lily's hide. "Always."

* * *

Catherine had come to associate Dover with Tom: the scene of most of their happy meetings. She waited impatiently for today's reunion for it had been sixteen months since they last saw each other, and she had no intention to wait on the needs of a hungry dragon to see him, and so she left Lily to it. Lily mostly did not care -- she was intent on the cows and maybe a nap, after -- so Catherine walked past the ground crew to meet him.

Tom was as attractive as she remembered, delight writ large on his face when he saw her, smiling and all in shining blue, white, and gold. He made his leg and bowed over Catherine's hand, making her laugh gaily. Lighthearted at his proximity, she clutched his hand before he could draw away and pulled him close enough to touch her lips to his. Her lieutenants grinned behind Tom's back, and pretended to great industry along with the ground crew over Lily's harness as soon as he stepped back, shocked.

"Catherine," he said in a hushed tone, "this is hardly the place for such a blatant display."

Catherine gave up a frontal assault to steal kisses from him, but she did not relinquish his hand; merely tucked her own in the crook of his arm and began walking with him to the buildings that housed living quarters and the common dining room at the covert. "After having waited over a year to enjoy the company of my husband, when would you propose any display of affection?"

"Certainly not in company." He glared balefully at her crew with much the same expression Laurence had worn wore the first weeks of his introduction to the Corps, and she recognized the same disapproval for the casual ways of aviators that Laurence had eventually shed. Generously she granted him the terrible disadvantage of his dragonless state, but even now, after four years of marriage, Tom remained aloof from the Corps. His coolness extended to Lily and was far more difficult to ignore or forgive, but as their conjugal visits remained intermittent at best, absence glossed over the worst of his transgressions. Catherine found her best enjoyment of her husband in their marital bed; most of their brief visits were by nature intimate, and precluded any involvement with any company, including her dragon.

Most enjoyment was not all enjoyment, and as they walked, they spoke of their friends, the war, gossip, but first of all about their son, Jack. Tom's mother corresponded with Catherine monthly letters that read like a log book: _On 29 September Jack took his first steps unaided. Received 12 March a shipment of cloth suitable for Jack's new wardrobe, having outgrown all his clothes. Jack acquitted himself well at his first riding lesson this past month. His Uncle Robert offered to educate Jack along with his youngest as soon as is seemly._ Tom's letters were filled with a mother's delight in reminiscing about her son as she raised her grandson, chatty, doting missives; he also visited home more frequently. He had seen Jack only a month ago.

"He is happy, then," said Catherine as they ascended the stairs to her rooms. "I want him foremost to be happy in his life, and if he is not, there is yet time to bring him into the Corps."

"No -- not at all; he is deliriously content with his lot," Tom hastily assured her. "A more likely boy never existed. Only just turned four and he can sit a horse better than I ever could and a delight to my old teacher, who had despaired at my antics."

"I sense you have an amusing story or perhaps a few to tell about that."

"Oh, no," he said, "nothing one could call amusing at all."

"If no one could call it amusing, then the tale must exist," Catherine insisted, and she persisted in deviling Tom for the details, just as he stubbornly evaded her attempts, until they reached her rooms and shut the door behind them. The air thickened instantly with the anticipation of carnality.

"A year and more is too long between visits, dear husband." Catherine shrugged out of her coat as she tugged her neck cloth loose, a movement that always widened Tom's eyes and flushed his cheeks.

"Must you be so - so flippant?"

His blush was not passion -- not wholly passion -- though what deepened the red of his face and made his hands tremble was not precisely anger. It had been months, seasons, over a year since they had last been together; battles and storms, the continued call to serve king and country between them. Catherine was unsure what raw emotion she saw open across his face, though the uncertainty did nothing to cool her ardor; rather her appetite sharpened, a perverse cupidity for him, perverse only because he was already hers.

Catherine pulled her shirt free from her uniform breeches. "My desire for you is wholly sincere, have no doubt."

He drew near, their hips almost kissing and his head bowed as he lifted the tails of her shirt to begin opening her breeches. He sounded strangled as he replied, "I know it," and once the cloth gaped and he bracketed her bare hips with his hands, he lifted his head and took her mouth with his lips and tongue.

Catherine tasted coffee and port on him, smelled the cigar smoke on his coat and the warm salt smell of the sea in his hair. She clasped her arms around his neck and fingered the tie of his queue, rolled it and plucked at it until it fell and his hair filled her hands, thick and pretty as any girl's, though he would blush to hear such thoughts. Much as she liked to confound him to high color, she offered no such distractions, and words escaped her entirely as his broad, warm palms drew over the contours of her waist and ribs, cupped neatly below her breasts to lift them and put his open mouth on one through the cloth of her shirt. Friction -- wet heat -- shocking pleasure -- Catherine struggled against him even as her back bowed and she bared her throat. Tom pressed against her with equal urgency, kissing the well of her heartbeat fluttering between her collarbones. Their feet shuffled in an awkward dance familiar to them both: the dance of battle on dragonback or ship's deck was much the same.

Tom broke the stalemate by hoisting her up, hands on her rear, and Catherine clasped her legs about his waist tight enough to feel his ardor pressed hot and hard against hers as he carried them both to the bed and they fell, together.

A quick engagement: Catherine had expected nor wanted more, at first, anticipating a long afternoon and a longer night filled with leisurely, indulgent coupling. But Tom slowed his kisses, drew his caresses long and languid along her skin as he folded the rest of her clothes off her. He skimmed out of his own uniform, foregoing his usual practice of carefully hanging his clothes in the wardrobe for a quick toss of each piece over the back of her stuffed chair, and made love to her thoroughly, deliberately, earnestly. He aroused her to her peak with his fingers, and then with his mouth, and when at last he filled her, the hard, tender heat of his prick slicked so deliciously into her, pressing ecstasy like bright light into her.

Tom was as greedily amorous in the morning as Catherine had been the previous afternoon, initiating a tumble she hastened, wanting to go to Lily before seeking out breakfast; she was fierce with hunger. Tom gallantly offered to accompany her, and she accepted, pleased, holding out hope that familiarity would wear the fragile tolerance between spouse and dragon into a warmer accord, for all their sakes: so few opportunities presented.

Lily was still curled in her pavilion but awake, her head raised and looking off into the distance, not ready to fully rouse into the day. She greeted Catherine with a gentle prod of her nose, and Catherine leaned fully onto her neck where it rooted into her shoulders; Lily was sensitive to pleasure there and enjoyed Catherine's petting. Pleasantly tired from lack of sleep for the happiest of reasons and still languid from the morning's romp, Catherine drew as much satisfaction as did Lily from her possessive nuzzling and from the rumble so quiet and deep that it could only be felt through her hide.

Catherine's eyes fluttered open, surprising a queer expression on Tom's face which he quelled awkwardly, turning to the view of green fields that ended abruptly in sky and sea, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. Guilt pinched Catherine; she had forgotten his presence even though the warmth she basked in was partly his doing.

Catherine inquired about Lily's sleep, and Lily replied yes, very well. "I had forgotten how soothing the sound of waves could be and the breeze wholly delightful; the screen breaks it perfectly for both comfort and refreshment."

"Then it is time to get up," Catherine said lightly. "Pray make your respects to Tom, since you missed his arrival yesterday, gorging yourself so greedily. You may be satisfied, but we are ravenous and would like to get to our breakfast."

Lily uncurled and stood, stretching out her spine and lashing her tail before bobbing her head at Tom. "Good morning. I trust your journey was comfortable?"

Tom made his leg. "Tolerably well, thank you. You are looking very fine."

Dragon and husband continued along their stilted intercourse until Catherine sighed in exasperation and rescued them all by begging starvation if they should continue before leading a grateful Tom to the dining tables. He made one attempt as they walked, saying, "She indeed looks well-cared-for; you are obviously an exceptional captain."

"Better to say Lily is an exceptional dragon," retorted Catherine. Tom changed the subject to speculation about the day's activities, and Catherine followed suit, just as happy to abandon discussion of Lily, though irritation nibbled her good mood. Tom restored it after breakfast, having retired with her to the rooms once more, ostensibly to ready themselves for an outing to the shops in town but leading once more to bed for an energetic, sun-drenched tussle. They lay companionably side by side, after; their loose hair mingled on the pillow they shared.

Wide awake and mellow, they eventually fell to talking, not about the war or their friends, but of the astounding things they had encountered in their lives. Catherine described how England rolled beneath her like patchwork, the billowing clouds that seemed substantial as canyons in the air. Tom spoke more eloquently of the ocean: the phosphorous wake in tropical night waters that drew a line behind them for miles; how the sky and sea touched at the horizon on a clear day, dividing the entire world into two halves of blue, one dark and one bright; a waterspout raised by weather, alarming and graceful, so much larger and wilder than those raised by dragons.

From there Tom's musings retreated into his path to the Navy, and then further back to idle reminiscences about his home, his childhood. He had a sentimental loyalty to his family Catherine could not fully appreciate, though she understood his attachment through his descriptions: he had the better eye for detail and nuance, and the better ability to turn a phrase.

"Father has pretensions to fox hunting," said Tom, "but he has yet to find a party foolish enough to chase him through muck and thorns only to be outsmarted by an animal. He has managed to breed excellent dogs, though. Intelligent, loyal creatures; Jack's follows him like a brother. It is dear to see." He cast a lazy eye at Catherine. "Much like you and your beast."

Sudden anger chilled her skin. "My _beast_ has a name, and I should like not to have to remind you to use it."

"Lily, yes," said Tom. "Forgive me; I meant no offence."

Catherine sat up, the covers pooling in her lap. "You should beg her forgiveness more than mine."

Tom tensed. "I should beg ... Would she even understand my meaning, were I to present to her my apologies? And for what should I specifically apologize, save a slip of name?"

"If I was to compare your mother to a bitch, you would demand a sincere apology to you and to her, or give satisfaction. If, that is," Catherine added, "the Corps could afford such irresponsible behavior."

He sputtered, scandalized, and struggled to sitting. "A woman, dueling!"

"I assure you, I am most capable with sword and pistol," she said coldly, "and I have participated in any number of close engagements. Have you ignored the proof of my scars?" She knew he had not; he had tenderly lapped each one not an hour ago.

"Duty is not the same as cool-blooded dueling," he insisted.

"It is. Violence is violence, whether dealt in the heat of battle or calculated on the field." Catherine abandoned the bed and dressed.

"I disagree on both counts: dueling is not the same as battle, and women are not naturally suited to violence as men are. A woman would not offer insult strong enough to warrant satisfaction, and despite your sordid fancy, you would never insult my mother so." Resentment drew tension on him face and body. "Even if such an improbable circumstance arose, comparing my mother to a bitch is hardly the same as pointing out the admirable traits of your dragon."

"But you insult her by seeing those good things you can only imagine in a low animal. Lily is not loyal like a dog; she is loyal to me as my equal, as am I to her. I demand you acknowledge Lily's place as a sentient peer, who is more important than us both to the service of England." Catherine shoved her shirttails into her breeches and thrust her feet into her unbuckled shoes. "If you cannot grant us both our due respect, then you have no right to our intimacy."

Tom's freckles stood out on his pale face, and with his anger weighing heavy on his brow and his hair wild about his head he looked as if on the edge of cold violence now. He was hurt, and she was hurt, but they were both angry, furiously so.

"Perhaps it is time that I reclaim my freedom to find a partner willing to accept Lily as she is," Catherine said stiffly.

"By all means, do so! You would neatly restore my liberty to find companionship devoted more honestly to me than to a creature unable to fulfill the natural needs of marriage."

"You --" Catherine nearly choked with anger; her hands shook with it. Without another word she snatched up her coat and sword and left.

Throwing herself on Lily's neck, Catherine cried and cursed each tear as it dampened the dragon's hide. Lily consoled her by threatening Tom with all manner of bodily harm, vowing to keep him from coming near Catherine, and the tender poke of her tongue on Catherine's hands like a warm, rough kiss.

"Never fret, darling one. He is not worth any amount of tears, and it is time I stop giving them to him." She scrubbed her cheeks with the heels of her hands.

"Let us fly," said Lily, and for hours they remained aloft with the wind on their faces, rushing by loud enough to clear their thoughts and calm their hearts enough so when they landed on a hillside not far from the covert, Lily said, "This thing you share with Tom Riley: it is more than just pleasure, I think. You are much attached to him, choosing him always above any other, and I know it is not because of the promises made during your wedding. I cannot imagine the same for myself; as pleasant as it was taking an egg from Temeraire, I would never forsake Vindicatus, just as Temeraire would never cleave to me alone: his affections lie mostly with Iskierka no matter the duty that calls him to reproduce as often as circumstances allow."

"You have hit the thing on the head: it is love and has been for a long time," said Catherine. "But you are my dearest. I am brought low by this breach of marriage, but I will recover. Without you, I would die."

* * *

Not given to writing letters, Catherine had become used to replying to Tom's long correspondences that read like an intimate conversation written over time; through the years many had been, in fact, written during the course of weeks when he could not leave the blockade and no courier dragon could be spared. She considered how she might respond when his next letter arrived. That one would fail to arrive never entered her mind, but as the days and weeks dragged on, there was nothing. Not a brusque note or a tearful letter begging reconciliation or the stiffly polite inquiry into her health that she considered the most likely. On those occasions she met Laurence he would insert into their conversations some reference to the fleet's movements, the actions they engaged, and their probable schedule for rotation.

Catherine demurred to say anything; she knew it would make Laurence uncomfortable to hear the intimate details of his friends' disaccord. She knew as well it would be churlish in the extreme to complain: Tom Riley was a naval man, a wholly different creature than an aviator and ignorant of the habits and necessities of a life lived with dragons, and she could not condemn him for the natures of their separate realms. For all that Laurence had leapt the gulf between sea and sky it was his relationship with Temeraire that made all the difference, and without a dragon of his own, it was a leap Tom would never be able to make.

She could and did condemn his lack of committed effort to know Lily, to let go his stubborn grip on the prejudice, half-truths and outright lies that persisted outside the Corps.

He should know by now; he should see.

With much the same strain of stubbornness, Catherine turned her shoulder to Tom even in his absence, changing the subject when Laurence began speaking of the fleet, leaving her post on the table for a day before reading it even though there was nothing from Tom, and nothing the next day, and the next, and the next; she avoided the _Gazette_ wanting to see no mention of his name or exploits.

"Perhaps you carry this campaign of silence to an extreme," Temeraire told her. Lily and Temeraire along with their captains had been called to Loch Laggan Covert again to help bring up the newest additions to fighting trim. After an early supper the captains had joined their dragons in the pavilion they shared to enjoy the sunset.

"She has managed to avoid that person very well for months now, and I will thank you not to disturb her effort," Lily said sharply.

"I only point out behavior that seems to cause your captain a great deal of effort and stress, for such small return," Temeraire said mildly. "She cannot avoid all knowledge of him forever without estranging some of their mutual acquaintances."

"Catherine may do whatever she pleases," snapped Lily. "That man is an insufferable, stiff-necked, intolerant --"

"Scrub," Laurence provided. "But he has changed his views, or rather had his eyes opened. You need not take my word for it, if only you would speak with him."

"He compared me to a dog," Lily complained.

Temeraire was taken aback by this, and his ruff rose half-way. "But I had the most civilized discussion with him about the economics of slavery only a fortnight ago. He has come about completely on the subject, a change as remarkable as the turnabout in the slave trade itself."

"His father lost a great deal of wealth in the wake of Africa --" and Laurence did not need to elaborate upon the scouring of that continent "-- yet Tom refuses to support the reestablish of any revenue based upon slavery. If I may be so bold, it has caused some difficulties between them. Please reconsider, and at the very least read the _Gazette_."

Catherine sniffed, and Lily remained unconvinced, but Temeraire continued his defense. "Captain Riley has come to be a close friend, and we speak at length -- often of you, Lily: I do not claim to know what he meant in his comparison of you to a dog, but he has admitted to pride in your fighting prowess. Once he admired to me your way of describing a battle; he said you could paint a picture of an aerial action with your words better than any one."

"He said this to you, but he did not say this to Lily. It is a second-hand compliment, and he should blush to have made it," Catherine said.

Temeraire cocked his head. "Perhaps your difficulties lie not in his disrespect of you, but in his jealousy of Lily. Laurence told me soon after I broke my shell that I was his first and only concern, and to speak for someone would be a burden upon them, forever coming second in their lover's heart."

Laurence looked pained and made an elegant effort to smooth over his dragon's bluntness, but Catherine dismissed him and his misplaced embarrassment from her thoughts. She began to say, "There was a moment," but then stopped and touched her mouth, remembering. On the morning of their quarrel Tom had witnessed her in an unguarded moment with Lily, and he had worn an expression of such intense emotion. Jealousy, it could have been nothing else, and it explained the outrageous remarks he had cut her with as she left: to his eyes it was if watching her walk blithely from his bed into another's, no matter that the physical love was wholly different. In his mind the sentiment was the same, and he was not far from wrong.

Catherine went to her bed, alone, after evading Laurence's last exhortations to relent -- seek out Tom -- write him a letter -- read the paper at the very least, for all love. Sleep was held back while she contemplated the nature of love between dragons and men, between women and men, between herself and Lily, and wondered if there was yet hope for Tom to see how he could find a place within that love, and perhaps touch it, just a little.

A month later, Catherine received a letter from Captain Thomas Riley.

* * *

Catherine brushed past Basson, Tom's cox'n, leaving him sputtering in her wake, and entered Tom's cabin without knocking. "You are the most exasperating man," she said, thrusting the crumpled letter at him like a sword.

Tom raised his quill from paper, surprised. He sat at his desk, wearing old, stained breeches unbuttoned at the knees, his shirt untucked and untied, and a dressing gown over all. His left leg was thickly bandaged from thigh to foot, the bare toes peeping out. "Forgive my lack of a proper greeting, Captain Harcourt. You have me at a disadvantage."

"Which you felt no compulsion to inform me. And Captain Harcourt, is it?"

"You had made your wishes plain. Allow me to respect them." He bowed stiffly from his chair.

"And what foolish reasoning led you to believe I wished for you to run away without so much as a by-your-leave, never to write until on your deathbed?" She glanced at the paper on the desk. "I suppose you are drafting a suit for divorce."

He laid the quill across it, smearing the wet ink of the bottom row of words, and drew himself tall as he could. Coldly he said, "I have never shirked a responsibility in this life: never. Had I been able, I would have come to you, but circumstances prevented."

"And therefore you sent a letter. It is prettily written, I grant you that, and generous in the settlement as well."

"I thought it better to release you from obligation sooner rather than later. I know you value your freedom."

She slapped the letter on the desk. "My freedom has never been an issue. No, I come and go as I please and as duty permits. I will not have you assume you know my wishes -- I _wish_ to be here."

"To engage in battle?"

"Yes! I want to finish this argument. It has been hanging far too long between us, and I would have an end to it."

"Our last meeting seemed very much like an ending, with you calling for your freedom as if your vows were something to be pawned."

"Pawned, no, but reversed, yes; I will not hold to an institution that will bind me when I do not wish to be bound."

"And did you once wish to be bound, to me?"

"Only as you were bound to me. And I still wish it but --"

"But! But! There is always an exception with you!" Tom turned a charming red: this was her most guilty pleasure, needling him to heat and warming herself in their reconciliation. His feelings could not be so different -- he met her challenges each time, and each time fell apart from her only after he had spent as much passion as she in their bed.

"You must make amends with Lily."

"I have always felt the attraction between us," said Tom, "you and I, and no matter the interventions it survives, strong as ever. But Lily ... I hardly know what to say to a dragon, let alone your dearest companion."

"She is my dearest companion, and that will never change. But I would continue to keep you as my companion, too."

Tom drew his hand down his face as if to wipe away some sudden pain. "As would I."

"So tear up the divorce and remain my husband. Only stop avoiding Lily; stop treating her as an idiot bore -- she is neither." Catherine leaned her palms on the desk. "I know you as well as I know my left hand; and I know Lily as I know my right, and I know in all certainty that if you gave each other a chance, you would come to be fond of each other: I would wager my life upon it, if only you would try." Catherine sank into the second chair, suddenly weary, and for long moments the sounds of the ship filled the silence between them with its creaks and groans below, the slap of feet above, the lonely cries of gulls drifting in through the windows.

"I would not lose you for anything," Tom said, "but I will not hold you a vow you have made first to another."

"And I would not lose you for anything else."

* * *

Although he could shift himself out of his cabin and into the longboat, it took a great deal of effort and the bosun's chair, so Tom asked Catherine's patience for a week until the bandages came off and his leg was declared not fatal. With a new dressing that swathed him only to his knee, he regained much of his mobility, and the next day he asked Catherine if they might visit Lily, on the shore rather than on the ship.

 _Of course_ , she agreed; having visited him every day of that long week she knew his leg, though better, was hardly sound. She considered relenting, letting him remain on his ship to continue his convalescence, but it was only a momentary lapse. This was work that should have begun four years ago -- had in fact begun four years ago, but had been stunted by separation, by demands of family, and even by the distraction of their passion for each other that excluded Lily so.

Tom appeared on deck in his best uniform of bright blue, spotless white, and blinding gold, his hair neatly queued, his shoes like black mirrors, and he held his cox'n and the cutter's crew to the same standards of painful brilliance. Guessing his intentions, and since the crew of the Reliant knew full well who she was, Catherine had done her best to match him. She had consulted the tailors Laurence recommended, and she met Captain Riley in all his splendor as Captain Harcourt, dressed in bright bottle green, snowy white and her own gold accoutrements.

Tom dismissed the boat crew at the dock, warning them to be ready at sunset; the Reliant was to sail in the morning to resume her position in the blockade. Catherine hired a fly carriage to carry them up to the hills outside the town, and Tom refrained from protest: his leg was not up to a hike of any length. Up, up they went, past houses that climbed the hill like stairs, the trees dense with noisy birds, and when they emerged from the shade they found Lily sitting on a green field that gently curved around the hill and afforded a charming view of the surrounding countryside. She had no pavilion, but she had ferried her possessions in a chest and Catherine had laid them out on a folding table that morning.

Lily bowed her head as they approached, saying, "I am happy to see you well again. Catherine read aloud an account of the battle that left you so injured. If you would not find it tiresome, I would like to hear what part you played."

"Your servant," Tom said as he made a careful leg, a sincere and respectful bow. "If we could signify the ships with some of your things, I could show you on this table." Lily chose which of her small treasures to use, Tom moved them around the table, and together they reenacted the battle from first broadside until the last flags came down, all while Catherine watched from her place on Lily's forearm.

As Tom helped repack the chest, he spied the checkered board. "Temeraire tells me you play checkers."

"I do, but I prefer chess. Catherine, please find the case to my chess set; I must show Captain Riley the fine set Temeraire gave to me. The figures are all of dragons carved from jade and ivory -- it is quite beautiful. Shall we play?"

"I -- that is to say," Tom blinked, taken aback yet again, "yes, I enjoy the game immensely, and I have played since I was a boy."

"Perhaps you can offer some real competition," Lily said, her pupils narrowing.

"Are you proclaiming your own competence?" Tom replied.

"I am," replied Lily. "Perhaps I could help you improve your game."

Tom's face reddened and he unfolded one of the chairs leaning against the table. "Or perhaps I might teach you a thing or two."

Lily watched him set up the pieces with quick, sure movements, angling her head just so, the pupil blown wide to see the details of the board. Her regard swiveled up to Catherine for a moment, and she said, "That fine red color suits his face, and I had never noticed before how thick his hair was; it has more shine than yours: quite like a young girl's."

The red in Tom's cheeks deepened, and he sputtered throttled protests -- _one cannot -- it is nothing like a girl's --_

After Tom had lost two games of chess but won three, he and Catherine lay in the grass while Lily went aloft, expressing desire for a snack, perhaps a dolphin. "I could never make a diet of only fish, but I like one tolerably well on occasion." She tiled her head and said, "I think there are few dolphins close to shore this time of year, so do not expect my return for at least an hour. Maybe more," and promptly launched herself into the sky, winging away with increasing speed.

"There are dolphins aplenty in these waters; for a dragon it would be the matter of a moment's work," said Tom.

"She is trying, do you not see it? I know you must, after playing chess all morning."

"So she is allowing us this time alone, you say?" Tom rolled up onto his side and traced a blade of grass down Catherine's cheek and around her lips.

"Indeed she is, as you know full well. You tease me, but you should not, because nothing in this world could please me more than if you and Lily would become friends."

"This enjoyable morning took little effort on my part; less than I had expected."

"Just as I told you so many times," she said tartly. "Hold to it, and I will have everything I ever desired ... except ..."

"Except what? Of all the people I know, you do not have it in you to play coy," Tom said, "so out with it."

"To have your love and Lily's love satisfies my happiness, but to ease my mind for the future, I would like a daughter. Lily will need her one day."

Tom fell back onto the grass, looking up into the sky, dazed.

"Her name, of course, will be Harcourt."

 


End file.
